After losing Sam Raimi as a potential director last year, the folks at Legendary Pictures have been on the hunt for a suitable replacement to take over their World of Warcraft movie. Now this week it looks like they have found their man in Duncan Jones, director of the well-received sci-fi flicks Moon and Source Code. The movie is based on the wildly popular MMO video game by Blizzard Entertainment, which takes place in Azeroth and pits the heroic Alliance versus the evil Horde. They are aiming to start production this fall with an eye on a 2015 release date.

According to THR, Jones has signed on to direct the fantasy film, which will simply be called Warcraft. The script was written by Charles Leavitt, who previously penned K-Pax, Blood Diamond and the upcoming fantasy film The Seventh Son. Although Jones is known for getting the most out of modestly budgeted projects, this movie is expected to have a budget in the vicinity of $100 million.

The number of World of Warcraft players has been dropping significantly over the past year or so, but the game apparently still boasts over 10 million subscribers. That’s a pretty huge fanbase to draw from, but if they don’t get it right they will suffer the wrath of 10 million angry gamers. There is a new wave of directors taking on video game movies in Hollywood right now and they are hoping to finally end the streak of terrible adaptations. Can a World of Warcraft movie actually succeed and is Duncan Jones the right choice to direct?

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Stinker

Don´t play WOW and don´t care about all this dragons, magic and other “fantasy” trash. But the Duncan Jones could create a triple of good to very good movie.

Or end up with a Uwe Boeller stinker of a movie.

Hope it will be good.

Jonny Ashley

Interesting enough director to make me slightly interested in a Warcraft movie. Potential strike on Jones’ record if it’s bad.

Adam Lenehan

What’s the storyline to wow anyway? It’s a pity that they didn’t decide to do a dungeons and dragons film. Oh well.

Andrew

The WOW mythology is so convoluted now that a successful movie would have to be very selective about what it includes.

I’d have thought a film that limits itself to more of the Orcs vs Humans/elves stuff of the first couple of warcraft rts games would be the way to go.

And with the humour and style that already existed in those games, a film that takes a more campy tone could have been quite fun and matched well with Raimi’s work.

I like Jones and am interested in what he’d do, though he seems to be more along the serious sci-fi line, and helpfully he would be spared from excessive corporate interference.